04 Lowcountry Bordello (12 page)

Thirteen

This time, the tune of “Blue Christmas” welcomed me to the bed and breakfast. It was almost ten, and the downstairs appeared deserted. A tray of Christmas cookies was on the foyer table. I grabbed a couple Santas and climbed the steps.

When I opened the door, Nate said, “Well, that was audacious.”

“You listened?” I handed him a cookie.

“Of course I did. You ran out of here without telling me what you were up to.”

“We’re hard-pressed.”

“I know. And, hey…” He shook his head. “It paid off. Well done, Slugger.”

“I’m not proud of myself. Bothering a widow on the very day her husband’s body is discovered. Mamma would skin me alive.”

“Mrs. Middleton seems to be holding up, from what I could tell. I think she’ll be grateful in the long run,” Nate said. “During the…lull…while everyone was socializing, I called in a favor and verified Nathaniel Gibbes and Wendi Hill flew to Vienna on Saturday the thirteenth. After a phone canvas of the nicer hotels, I found them at the Grand Hotel Europa in Innsbruck. The concierge has helped them with entertainment virtually every day, and they’ve ordered a great deal of room service. I think we can safely rule them out.”

“Thank heavens we can rule someone out.” I sighed, bit Santa’s head off. “What’s going on across the street?”

“Things have mostly quieted down. All the clients have gone home except Arthur Russell. Huger just left with the same woman who arrived with him. I couldn’t get a shot of her face, even her hair color, for the scarf and sunglasses. Seth is watching TV.”

“Prioleau’s already gone?”

“Yeah. Just a few minutes ago.”

“He sure didn’t stay long,” I said. “We have all their names, and not one of them is John. Miss Dean called John for help. Who the devil is John? I need to get to work on pulling background on all these people.”

I settled in with my laptop. Then my phone vibrated. Mamma. And the call I’d sent to voicemail earlier was from her. “Hey, Mamma.” I reached for my happy voice.

“
E-liz-a-beth
.” She must’ve been tired. She didn’t trot out the rest of my names.

“Mamma, what’s wrong?”

“Where are you? Merry says she’s staying with Rhett.”

“I’m in Charleston. Nate and I have a case. We’re staying over here tonight.”

“You do recall you’re getting married on Saturday?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to wear that gorgeous dress.”

“Why on God’s green earth can’t you take the week off like normal people?”

“We’d planned to. But something came up.”

“You need to learn to say ‘no’ to people. You have a life aside from your job.”

“I know, Mamma.”

“Don’t patronize me, Elizabeth. I called to see when Nate’s parents are arriving. You never told me. I’ve asked a dozen times.”

“Hold on a sec.” I held my phone against my leg. “When are your parents getting here?”

Nate’s eyes widened. He swallowed, rolled his lips in. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Did they decide where they want to stay?” I asked. We’d invited them to stay with us. Mamma had likewise extended an invitation. Between the two houses, we had eight guest bedrooms.

“In a hotel. In Charleston.”

“Why? They won’t even be able to get back here after the reception’s over. The ferry will’ve stopped running.”

“My guess is they’re not planning to stay for the bouquet toss.”

That hurt my heart. Not because I cared one whit about those cold fish jerks, but for Nate. “Oh no. Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

His face closed. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Whatever they do or don’t do is not going to have one iota of impact on our wedding and our party.”

I’d kept Mamma waiting too long. I raised the phone. “They’re staying in Charleston.”

“What? Why on this earth would they do that?”

“Well, Mamma, I suppose they have mixed emotions about me marrying their other son.” Nate’s older brother, Scott the Scoundrel, was my ex-husband, whereabouts unknown, but likely in a country with no extradition. That was a whole nother story.

Mamma huffed. “Poor Nate. Is he all right?”

“I think so.”

“Bless his heart. I’m still mad as fire at those people over the rehearsal dinner. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Nate’s parents maintained they couldn’t manage to coordinate a rehearsal dinner on Stella Maris from Florida, which everyone knew was ridiculous. Nate had quietly taken care of it himself. “I know, Mamma. They’ve made their own hotel arrangements, anyway, so we don’t need to worry about where they’re sleeping.”

“I assure you I won’t waste another millisecond of my time worrying about them. Have you spoken to Nicolette?”

“Yes. I told her again. Eight to a table. If some of them don’t have centerpieces, I seriously doubt the world will stop turning.”

“If she calls you again, tell her to call me if she needs anything else between now and Saturday.”

“Thank you, Mamma. I will.”

“We’ll see y’all Thursday evening.”

“Thursday?” Hell’s bells. What else had I forgotten?

“Thursday night. We’re having family Christmas because you and Nate will be in St. John over Christmas, remember? Which I still object to, by the way. It’s not like you and Nate haven’t been honeymooning for years now. You could’ve waited until the day after Christmas to leave. It might not be too late to change your tickets.”

I was not going down that road with her.

“Oh, right. For a moment it slipped my mind. We’ll see you Thursday at six.”

“Fine. Give Nate my love.”

“Will do. Bye now.”

“Bye-bye.”

I heaved a deep sigh. “I still have to find Daddy’s Christmas present. He’s always the hardest to buy for. At least this year he didn’t ask for something ridiculous.” For a number of years, he’d sent us all on a scavenger hunt by asking for things he thought would be hard to find. A digeridoo. A toucan bird—I’d gotten a ceramic one. A hippopotamus—Merry found one made of concrete for the yard. The list went on.

“I’d get him a gift card,” said Nate.

“I can’t get Daddy a gift card. It has to be something personal.”

“Just don’t get him another gun.”

I gave Nate my best
Oh please
look. Then I set to working on profiles and organizing the information we’d gathered so far. I liked to know everything I could about everyone involved. You never knew what might be important. After digging a while, among other things, I established that none of the parties involved had criminal or civil action records. All of the bordello patrons came from old Charleston money.

The number of people involved made it difficult to see all the pieces to my puzzle. I needed a whiteboard and photos. I’d taken plenty of snapshots, but had no quick way to print them. I improvised with a quilt on the floor and some index cards from my tote. After laying it all out, I stood back to view my handiwork.

The bordello clients were down the left side of the quilt, with their “nieces” across from them on the far right. At the bottom, I added the former residents, boyfriends, and other assorted characters:

William Calhoun
     
Amber McDonald

Brown hair, nice smile      Black hair

39 years old        23 years old

Beauty Queen wife      College of Charleston

Highly respected neurosurgeon    Financial Management

Friend of Thurston Middleton

Negative patient ratings/bedside manner

Nathaniel Gibbes
     
Wendi Hill

Sandy hair        Blond

35 years old         25 years old

Out of the Country
      Stripper pole

         
Out of the Country

James Huger
        
Dana Clark

Salt-and-pepper hair, handsome    Brunette

42 years old        27 years old

CEO, Huger International    Nursing student, MUSC

Friend and campaign contributor  Lots of passport stamps

Two rooms, mystery woman   
Fifty Shades

Devoted husband, father    Not as discreet as others

Philanthropist

Henry Prioleau   
 
Heather Wilder

Brown hair, round glasses    Blond, blue-green eyes

27 years old        27 years old

VP, family restaurant business    Grad Student

Rut’s New South Cuisine    Environmental studies

Hiding something      Interesting lingerie

Negative comments/TripAdvisor/  Spunky

Short fuse

Arthur Russell   
 
Lori Stowe

Kevin Spacey with a mustache    Redhead, tall

40 years old        22 years old

Owns antique store on King Street  Trident Tech

Serial adulterer        Information Systems

Knew Thurston Middleton    Costumes

Seth Quinlan

Longish brown hair

Burly

46 years old

Blackmailer

Murderer

Loved Roxanne

Protective of Aunt Dean

Robert Pearson

Raylan Beauthorpe

Julia Middleton

William Rutledge
     
Roxanne Trexler

(Deceased)        (Deceased)

Next, I made a card for Thurston Middleton and placed it in the middle of the quilt.

Thurston Middleton

Devoted husband, father

Philanthropist

Entering political arena

Once paid for Julia’s room at Miss Dean’s boardinghouse

Would not cave to blackmail

Tried to help Miss Dean, protective

“I need some yarn.”

Nate looked over his shoulder. “Maybe Annelise has some.”

“She wasn’t downstairs the last time I came in. I don’t want to disturb her. I bet she has spaghetti in the kitchen.”

I headed downstairs. The music was off, the house quiet. In Annelise’s well-organized pantry, I quickly scored a box of Mueller thin. On my way back, the four remaining Christmas cookies on the tray in the foyer called to me. It would’ve been a shame to let them dry out overnight. I scooped them up and slipped quietly back upstairs.

“Arthur Russell just left,” said Nate when I’d closed the door. “He does favor Kevin Spacey a bit, in a
House of Cards
sleazy politician kind of way.”

“Everyone looks sleazy sneaking out of a whorehouse.”

“Fair point.”

“I’m just trying to keep some sort of visual. Without photos to put on my board, the descriptions help.”

“Whatever works.”

I opened the box of spaghetti and took out a few noodles. Using three pieces end-to-end, I made a line connecting Julia Middleton to Thurston Middleton. My instincts said there was no way she killed her husband. But experience had taught me that people can fool you, and family members are very often liable in the deaths of their loved ones.

Next I connected James Huger to Thurston Middleton. They’d been close friends, and Huger was a campaign contributor. He had the strongest connection I knew of aside from Julia. Then I made connecting lines to Thurston’s card from Arthur Russell and William Calhoun, the other two men Julia had mentioned Thurston knew well. Seth had the best motive I knew of. Spaghetti line for him. Raylan Beauthorpe and Robert Pearson both had opportunity.

Nate stared at the screen.

“Are you connecting people who knew him?”

“People who knew him and people who had motive, means, or opportunity.”

“I see,” said Nate. “Well, I suppose that thins the herd by a few.”

“The three men we know were in the house last night are Calhoun, Huger, and Russell. They’re already connected.”

“So are we eliminating Henry Prioleau?” Nate asked. “I’d say he has as much motive as the rest of them.”

“Agreed. And just because we haven’t found a connection yet doesn’t mean there isn’t one. His family’s chain of restaurants is very popular. The one here in Charleston is highly rated. Most of the reviews on TripAdvisor and so forth are very positive. But the few that aren’t make the whole family sound a little nutty. Henry in particular reportedly has a very short fuse. Apparently, he doesn’t handle criticism well. I have a lot of work to do, and precious little time.”

“Me, too.” Colleen faded in. “We need to get the girls out of the house tonight.”

I nodded.

“Nate, I think we need to move the girls to a safe place.”